AirBnBing without owning

[Ben Rice]

I recently heard of a strategy to list other people's properties on AirBnB and profit on the margin.

Basically you approach home owners that have a unit listed online that hasn't rented right away and explain to them what your intent is. You come with your own lease and explain that you would like to lease their property and list it on AirBnB. The benefits to the owner are that the unit will constantly be cleaned after each tenant and they will always receive the monthly rent that they were asking for. And on your end, depending on how many nights and how much you charge per night you could make a profit without actually owning a property. As long as you are upfront with the property owner and have everything spelled out in the lease, it sounds like it could be an interesting idea. Has anyone tried this or have advice either way?

Thanks.

[Youdo Thirakul]

I was thinking about doing the same thing with some friends in seattle but for some reason when I did my math for downtown seattle, I would break even unless I can charge more then what some airbnb in downtown seattle was charging for.  I think the profit come up to around 200-300, for a 80 a night, 30 days, charge cleanup fee and tax and if I can fill up the 30 days month.  I believe you have to do this in a big scale and diversify the portfolio $200 x 10 different apt and location make more sense but again you have to come up with the deposit, furniture the apt and you might need to pay for cleaning crew/management.  If you end up doing this let me know how it goes, i think its a good idea if you can get partners and do in a big scale ... but that just me.